Ann of Puffing Pot Pond: A Classic as Retold by Hobby Barn Bobby
by Hobby Barn Bobby
Summary: Ann of Puffing Pot Pond: A Canadian Classic as Retold for Today by Hobby Barn Bobby [NOTE: This is a modern *Swearing* retelling of a classic tale that is meant as a humorous parody for adults. Some will like it, some will not. Either way, leave a review if you like it, or to voice your concerns. Thanks!] Still have to figure out how to align the chapters, though.
1. Mrs Lynde Is Revealed to be a Sow

**Ann of Puffing Pot Pond**

_A Canadian Classic as Retold for Today_

_by _

_Hobby Barn Bobby_

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_**[NOTE: This is a modern *Swearing* retelling of a classic tale that is meant as a humorous parody for adults. Some will like it, some will not. So I decided to put up a short writing sample featuring the openings of chapters 1-3. So you can decide if you like my take on it or not. If you do, then come back here for more, and if you don't, no worries. Either way, post a review, whether you like it or not. Thanks!]**_

_**ps: you can see some of the background for this in my author's note on my profile.**_

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**CHAPTER1: Mrs. Lynde is Revealed to be a Sow**

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived near where the main road to Dirt Bag Alley dipped into a hollow, fringed with empty plastic pop bottles, traversed by a brook with a source in the backwoods of the Cuthbert place, by the field where Mr. Matthew grew the "Hay!" that gave Puffing Pot Pond its name; it had a complex reputation as a headlong brook in its earlier course, with dark secrets of the pool where Marilla, reportedly, dumped the bodies, however, once it got to Lynde's Hole it was a quiet little stream, because not even a brook would try to get past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's house without shutting the fuck up; it was quite aware that Mrs. Rachel was sitting, by her window, like the sow that she was, looking out for anything odd or out-of-place, and if she noticed anything like that, you knew you would never hear the end of her _whatever why fors_?

There are lots of people, in and around Dirt Bag Alley, who are such nosy pricks that they can only nitpick other people's affairs by neglecting their own shit, but Mrs. Rachel Lynde is such a capable creature she can manage not only her own shit, she can also throw down with the shit of others. She is a busy woman, after all, being a notable Madam, with her work being not only always done, it is always well done and always finishes with a happy ending, she also runs Stich & Bitch sessions, helps organize the Sunday rum running, and is the dopest pivot of the Queens County Roller Gals, a scourge to the jammer from St. Peters Bay, over in Kings County. Yet, despite all this business, Mrs. Rachel found time to sit on her ass by the window, for hours, stitching and bitching ill-fitting scarves—she knitted 16 of them, as Dirt Bag Alley house keepers were wont to tell, their awed voices lowering whenever they said, "But one end is always longer than the other?"—while eagle-eyeing the main road that crossed in front of Lynde's Hole. Since Dirt Bag Alley occupied a small peninsula that jutted out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, surrounded by water on two sides, it meant that anyone who came or went had to run Mrs. Lynde's all-seeing eye gauntlet.

So it was that, one afternoon in early June, she was sitting on her ass by the window, enjoying the warm sun; the orchard sloping down from the house was flush with colour and the buzzing of bees. Thomas Lynde—a meek little guy whom the folks of Dirt Bag Alley called, "Rachel Lynde's Gimp"— was out in the field beyond the barn interfering with a cow, as was his wont, despite repeated warnings from the local constabulary. And Matthew Cuthbert should have been up to similar antics, but with goats, on the big red brook field over at Puffing Pot Pond. Mrs. Rachel knew that was what he should presently be doing because she overheard him say to Peter Morrison, over at the store in Carmody, the evening before, that, "To wit, Peter, tomorrow I aim to plow that goat good and deep." This was only after Peter had made inquiries, for Matthew Cuthbert wasn't really known to share intel about most things in his whole life, particularly if it pertained to goat interference.

And yet, there's Matthew Cuthbert at half past three of a weekday afternoon, nary a goat (plowed or otherwise) nearby, quietly driving his buggy over the hollow and up to the hill. What is more, being dressed in his Sunday best, and going in the general direction that led away from town, Mrs. Lynde was quite certain that he was aiming to get the fuck out of Dodge.

Furthermore, given that he was driving the buggy, pulled by the little sorrel mare and not the beloved Clydesdale that was no good over distances ever since Mr. Matthew fucked it near half to death, it was quite apparent that he was planning on going some distance from Puffing Pot Pond, where he lived with his sister Marilla. Only two of them lived there. Keep that in mind for when the comment about the dinner plates comes up in a couple of paragraphs.

Now where was I, oh yes…Mrs. Lynde was a pondering as to where was it that Mr. Matthew's was a going. "Surely not up to Tignish? Why up there it's all just red hair and bucked teeth?" She pondered some more, in an out loud fashion so as to allow the reader to get a gist of her thoughts, "And why would he go anywhere without his beloved goats?" Being the nosy sow that she was, she might easily have inferred what just about any of the other gentlemen of Dirt Bag Alley might be doing leaving town. But Mr. Matthew was a quiet, shy man, who rarely left the safety and security of the farm at Puffing Pot Pond, and it vexed Mrs. Lynde's nosiness so much that she got the fuck up and off of her ass.

"I'll just meander over to Puffing Pot Pond and ask Marilla about these funny going's on." And so, she accorded herself of a visit after tea and a couple of toots of her pipe. She didn't have far to go, Puffing Pot Pond being quite close to Lynde's Hole. That said, the house, was at the distant end of the property, so she didn't actually make it there until the end of the current paragraph.

And so, Mrs. Lynde jumped from the last paragraph to this one, in a figurative manner of course since Winnie-the-Pooh illustrator E.H. Shepard isn't handy. She landed in the verdant back yard of Puffing Pot Pond, its lush green grass being spelled out in case any reader didn't know what "verdant" meant, 23 words ago, and I'm not passing any judgment now as I had to look it up myself. Along one side of the yard was a long line of willow, arranged suchly as to provide privacy for Mr. Matthew's indecencies, as some in Dirt Bag Alley referred to them.

Hopping to it up the back steps, Mrs. Lynde rapped on the kitchen door and, being a sow, walked right in without being bidden. The kitchen was spotless, not so much because of any OCD issues Marilla might have, more because of the bored shittedness of women's lives that was the current fashion. Through the west window you got a glimpse of the back yard that had partially been described in a previous paragraph, and Mrs. Lynde glanced out of it, allowing the writer the opportunity to add further to the descriptions, writing that she saw mellow June sunlight flooding over the blooming orchard of cherry trees beside the swaying birches of the forest in the hollow through which the brook meandered with rural panache.

Marilla sat there, at the table with a cup of tea and her smokes, away from the sunlight which seemed to her too dancing and jolly for a world meant to be dour and shit, and she was knitting. Lo and behold, didn't the visiting Nosy Nora noted the supper table settings: AND THERE WERE THREE PLATES!

See, Mrs. Rachel wasn't the sharpest knife in the kitbox, but she quickly did the math: "Now, only Mr. Matthew and Marrilla live in this house, but there are three plates, and two plus three equals five!"

Marilla was tall and thin, all angles and no curves and she could easily have passed for one of the Gashlycrumb Tinies excepting for the fact that Edward Gory won't publish that book for another fifty-five years (thanks to The Doctor for the intel). But imagine if Zillah hadn't drank too much gin, and grew up instead and, Bingo, you've got Marilla.

Moving the slowness of Victorian writing habits along, Rachel says, "S'up! Dog!"

"S'up? Is that Matt's gone into Hunter, I mean Bright River to meet the train that will be delivering a little boy that we bought from a Nova Scotia orphanage so he can work the fields for free."

"Say what?"

"We've been talking about it all winter so I'm surprised you haven't already heard, seeing as how you're akin to the local radio station for news?" Marilla paused, but Mrs. Lynde didn't take the bait, so she continued, "See, after Mrs. Spencer told us she was adopting a girl we thought we'd get a boy to help Matthew on the farm. It's shitty trying to pick out the kind of kid you want. They're tainted goods to start with, but you can still be careful. I ruled out the Frenchies right from the get go. And the English home boys, no fucking London Arabs for me. And no girls! Definitely not a girl. Nope, no way on chicks! Or red heads either, since that is as sure a sign of the devil as anything."

"But an orphan? They're worse than a pig in a poke. Why look at those special needs kids in that house down in Toronto. It would be one thing if they didn't plan on letting them go outside. But there they are, a wandering the neighbourhood causing those nearby by to wonder what they will tell the children."

"I know, I know. Anyway, we got word that Mrs. Spencer has gone over to Halifax to pick her one up so we sent a telegram asking her to pick one out for us as well. About ten years old, which is old enough that he can do chores, but young enough that we can still break him in and train him to do shit the right way. She sent us a telegram that she's returning today, dropping the boy off at the station in Bright River before she continues on to White Sands with her booty. So Matt's gone off to get him. The boy. Yep, definitely a boy."

"Well," said Rachel, "if you ask me—"

"—Which I didn't—"

"—That's neither the here nor the thereof it. I think it's a darn foolish and risky thing bringing an orphan, especially an off-Island orphan, a strange child, into your house. The holy, mortifying shame of it all. I read in the paper last week that an orphan done burned down the house of the nice couple that adopted him from the asylum. And those parents in California are protesting against the busloads of Mexican children. Oh, and, and, and a friend of a friend told me of how her friend's friend adopted a boy and do you know what that boy did?"

"What," said Marilla, thinking she wished she had some gin, like Zillah.

"Sucked eggs."

"What?"

"He used to suck eggs! They couldn't break him out of it."

"I have no idea what that means."

"I know, it must be a 1908 thing. Don't break character."

"Sorry."

"If you had asked my advice, I would have told you not to do it. You can poke a duck in the eye with a stick but it's still a duck."

"Well," puffed Marilla, "we shit on a stick and done done it. Matthew's set on it and Nova Scotia is right next door so it ain't like the kids going to be much different from ourselves. Heavens to Betsy knows what might come of it had we got an urchin from England or the States, or even," she shuddered, "Moncton."

Mrs. Rachel also shuddered at the mention of the town, and said, "Which reminds me, over in New Brunswick an orphanage asylum girl strychnined the well and didn't the whole family go and die in fearful agonies. Excepting for the girl of course, who knew not to drink it."

"See though," Marrilla puffed away, taking a break from her knitting, "as I already mentioned in a feat of foreshadowing a couple of paragraphs back, we ain't getting a girl. Never in my life would I even dream of getting a girl. Don't know why Mrs. Spencer's doing it." She tapped at her forehead indicating that she had an idea.

"I don't know." Repeated the broken record.

"I think two words will convince you."

"Shoot."

"Short book." Marilla ashed her cigarette. "If we don't adopt a kid this is going to be a short book and you and me'll be down in the unemployment line-up looking for our pogey cheques."

"Fair enough," said Mrs. Rachel, unconvincingly. She didn't want to hang around because it would cut into her blabbermouth time and she must certainly cause a sensation by heading, post-haste, up the road to Robert Bell's farmstead to tell them the news. So she left, barely hearing Marilla mutter under her breath, "Sow."

When Mrs. Lynde was safely out in the lane she let rip with her royal sowness. "Well fuck a duck, imagine a kid at Puffing Pot Pond? If there's anyone to feel sorry for in this whole affair it's that young one. Matthew and Marilla ain't got a clue about kids and I doubt there's ever been a kid at Puffing Pot Pond. And," she ejaculated further onto the wild rose bushes out on the lane, "it just seems uncanny for a kid to be at the Pond, for Matthew and Marilla were grown up when that new house was built."

That house, if you'll allow me to incidentally drop in a little exposition, like a dj on the backbeat, was afforded on account of what was grown in the back fields. And what people did with the product of the bales of HEY! accounts for the shade of green they painted the gables and the name given to Puffing Pot Pond. According to my granddad, anyhow. Now don't you go blabbing to the authorities seeing as how I just privy'd you in on some local information!

And so, Mrs. Rachel continued skipping happily down the lane, if you could call her maniacal hopping either _skipping_ or _happy_, continuing to backstab her neighbour's by expostulating to a tree, "And they're so old I doubt they were ever even children themselves. I wouldn't want to be in that orphan's shoes for nothing. I pity the little shit."

Ah, but if she could have seen the earnest eagerness of the sweet child, patiently waiting at the train station in Bright River at the very moment Mrs. Rachel was saying she pitied the kid, her pity would have been more profound, and way deeper than the well that got strychnined near, shudder, Moncton.

**CHAPTER II. Matthew Cuthbert's WTF Moment**

...coming soon...


	2. Matthew Cuthbert's WTF Moment

CHAPTER II. Matthew Cuthbert's WTF Moment

Well now, but didn't Matthew Cuthbert make it along the eight miles to the train station in Bright River in no time, thanks to the sorrel mare, whereas he might have still been trying to get there by Christmas if he'd harnessed up the beloved Clydesdale. It was a pleasant, pretty little road, running along between happy-go-lucky farmsteads and little bits of balsamy forests or jaunty little hollows where wild plums were hung out by the ne'er do wells of Moncton, who had nothing better to do than show up on the Island during the season, unzip their trousers and dangle the filmy bloom of their plums. The sweet scent of apple orchards wafted on the breeze and the meadows sloped away, off to the horizon while:

_"Tiny birds were singing, like it was_

_The singular day of summer in all of the year long._"

See now, "_singular day of summer_" is, I won't shit you, not too far off out here on the Island. Seems the season has only just started and the next thing you know it's over and you're back on the pogey, spending the winter building hobby barns. But that's never no mind for Matthew, who enjoyed the drive in his own leisurely fashion, excepting when he passed women and had to nod to them, as was the custom on Prince Edward Island, whether you knew them or not. Thing is, aside from Mrs. Rachel and Marilla, Matthew dreaded all women, which is gonna make what happens in a few paragraphs a peachy keen WTF moment.

Folks reckoned that Matthew had his way with goats because he was so shy of women. He thought they laughed at his stooped, ungainly figure, with long grey hair down past his shoulders and a droopy dog mustache that was teased out from his gruff beard. And he was right, they did laugh. The pricks. But then again, the place ain't called Dirt Bag Alley for nothing. Short and narrow of this description is that Matthew was sixty and he looked it.

Matthew tied up the horse in the yard of the Bright River Hotel when he got to town and sauntered over to the station. See now, on the platform of the station the stationmaster was talking away with an innocent child who had been dropped there by Mrs. Spencer, who continued with the train on to White Sands. Which is where Mrs. Spencer lived. She didn't go back to Halifax, to the asylum, because she didn't work there. You'd know that she didn't go back to Halifax if you read Maude Montgomery's book. But not if you based your school papers on internet study guides that should know better and said that Mrs. Spencer worked at the asylum. Meaning she would have headed back to Halifax after dropping the girl off, thereby throwing the meeting in chapter 6 (with Marilla, the girl and Mrs. Blewett) way off.

Anyway, that's beside the point at the moment, the young girl had long red hair tied up in pigtails, a shabby straw hat and she wore a plain dress. Her face was petite and whiter than white save the splattering of freckles across it that contrasted with her bright gray, inquisitive eyes. On the platform beside her sat a battered carpet bag that contained all of her worldly possessions. The stationmaster took a drag from his cigarette and handed it to her, "Thanks," she said gruffly, taking the smoke and hauling on it, eying his name tag, on which was printed _Hobby Barn Bobby_.

"K, Matthew's gonna be here soon," said the stationmaster. "So I'll make this quick. You can fuck up and be precocious, but don't be too precocious. Just be kind of cutesy when you do it."

The girl shrugged her shoulders and looked away disinterestedly; blowing smoke and giving the stationmaster the finger.

"I'm just saying," he continued, "things would be different if you hadn't burned down the Moncton Primary School a couple of years back, but—"

"—They deserved that?"

"Why?"

"Did you notice that they never spelled my name with an "e" after the fire?"

The stationmaster gave her a whatfor look as he took back the cigarette, taking a drag. "I'm just saying."

She stood up, stretched her arms over her head. "I'm sorry, I'm just crabbitty."

"No problems. Is it about meeting the new family?"

"That's always part of it, but what the fuck is with that Mrs. Spencer lady?"

"What do you mean?" Through the station windows the stationmaster saw that Matthew was coming around the side of the building. "Quickly, now, he's coming."

"I mean, who the fuck leaves an eleven year old on a train platform all by herself in the middle of nowhere."

"Fair point, but see, you have to remember that you're on the Island now, and things are different here."

She shrugged her shoulders, disinterestedly, asking, "Is Mrs. Spencer a major character?"

"I'm not really at liberties to tell you that."

"Oh, oh, oh! So that's how it's gonna be. Now you listen to me, Mr. Hobby Barn Bobby, if that is your real name, you ever heard the phrase, _sometimes this shit just writes itself_?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm not one to make idle threats, but either you take her out of the rest of the book…"

"Or?"

"Or I do!" she shouted, jumping up with a Bruce Lee kick that pulled up just in front of his fishing tackle. He recoiled slightly, "Hah! Two for flinching!" she expostulated, tapping him twice, gently, on the shoulder with her closed fist. "As I was saying, cut Mrs. Spencer out," with her finger she made a cutting notion across her throat while mouthing, "or I do."

"Sure thing. Sure thing." said the stationmaster. "Places now, places, don't break character." He headed into the ticket office.

"Fine," she said, smiling, sitting back down on a pile of shingles. "I'll do my best. I'm actually looking forward to a change after that shithole asylum in Halifax. Still though, at least it wasn't Moncton."

Matthew walked up the station steps and continued down the long platform, but he could only see a plainly dressed young girl of about eleven, sitting on a bench beside the previously mentioned bag that contained all of her worldly possessions. Which is just to say that she didn't have much in the way of anything, if you haven't already figured that out.

Matthew passed her by, seeing as he was looking for a young boy, but not in the sense of how the folks down yonder with the white paneled hay wagons went looking for youngsters. Seeing the stationmaster leaving the office and locking up, Matthew sidled over and asked if the five-thirty train would be along soon."

"Been and gone," said the stationmaster. "And there was that little girl dropped off for you." He pointed in the direction of the aforementioned girl. "I asked her to sit inside the ladies waiting room but she was having none of it. Bit of a head case, if you ask me. But that's a given, seeing as how she's from the orphanage and has red hair and all and we all know that no good can come of any of that."

"But, I'm not expecting a girl. Mrs. Spencer was supposed to drop off a boy. To help on the farm."

"Guess you're SOL," whistled the stationmaster. "All I was told was that you'd be along shortly to collect that youngster. Being that girl over yonder." The stationmaster walked jauntily away to his supper and Matthew sucked it up, Buttercup, walking over to the girl.

The girl saw him approaching and, noting his shy manner, hopped up, saying, "Hiya, I suppose you're Matt C. from Puffing Pot P. I'm glad you made it because I was getting worried and just about worked myself into a tizzy what with all of the imaginings I've been doing about what might have happened to you and what might have happened to me if you didn't show up. Why I reckoned I might walk over to that cherry tree and climb up it and sleep the night if you didn't show up but I didn't want to step on the carpet." She pointed in the direction of the tree and Matthew looked over.

"Excuse, me," he said cautiously, looking back at her, "what carpet?"

"Why the carpet of green that surrounds yonder tree," she averred excitedly.

Matthew looked again, "You mean the grass around the tree?"

"Grass!" exclaimed the girl. "Why never in my life did I dream that I would ever get to see grass! It's so lovely and green like in the poetry books I've perused while avoiding my misbegotten life! At the asylum we never saw grass, it being all brick and hard packed dirt with nary a sapling except for the one that would make Charlie Brown's Christmas tree proud."

She smiled a wide smile and widened her eyes to look as innocently innocent as anything made in an innocent factory and Matthew couldn't bring himself to tell her that there had been a mistake. He couldn't bear to tell her that not only was she not wanted at the asylum, she wasn't even wanted out here on the Island. Matthew reckoned that he'd take her back to Puffing Pot Pond so Marilla could tell her.

_Chickenshit._

"Pardon me for my tardiness," said Matthew. "The horse is in the yard, come along." He bent to pick up her bag but she grabbed it first, given that her life at the asylum meant she suspected that Matthew might have a latent design of an untoward nature regarding her worldly possessions.

"That's okay, I got it." She skipped merrily along the platform, singing, "I finally have a home, I finally have a home, heigh-ho the derry-o, I finally have a home." She turned to Matthew, who she thought was looking slightly awkward. "Not that I would have minded living in a cherry tree…"

"Yeah, about that cherry tree," said Matthew.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Ummmm." They had crossed the yard and were beside the buggy so he just said, "All aboard," and she jumped up and into the buggy, reaching out to a tree branch to touch it, grabbing hold of it and accidentally breaking the limb off. "Shit, sorry, I didn't mean to bust it. The poetry books never mention how trees are fragile and tender souls like myself," she said, glancing over at Matthew, but he was caressing the mare's tail, a bit weirdly, she thought. She looked up at the reader and brought her index finger to her pursed lips, whispering a, "Shhhh," and winking as she threw the broken branch into some bushes, hoping no one else but you saw her environmental indiscretion.

Matthew continued his caressing and she thought he might be of a mind to weave the tail into a braid like one of the two hanging from her own head. And so she thought she had a soul mate in Matthew. That aside, after a few minutes she coughed, stammering out, "Any day now?"

"Oh, sorry. I sometimes get carried away," and as he climbed into the buggy she knew for sure that she had a soul mate, what with him being an animal lover and all, she figured.

They sauntered off jauntily and she shouted, "Weeeeeee," in a freckled way. Looking back over at the cheery tree she exclaimed, "Grass! Who woulda thunk I'd ever get to see grass! This truly is the happiest day of my life!"

_Ummmm,_ thought Matthew, wondering how he might be able to get her to dial it down a notch or two as she babbled on. To his surprise, Matthew was kind of taken by her chatter. Like most folks that don't say much, he didn't mind when others filled in the space with their own talk. Though, truth be told it was usually just Mrs. Rachel going on about who had supposedly done what to who back in Dirt Bag Alley. This sprite young thing sitting in his buggy was different though, he thought, listening to her going on incessantly about the surrounding countryside they trotted through. He thought it was interesting to hear her take on it, her being brand new to something that he realized he had pretty much taken for granted for the last million or so years.

"What colour do you think my hair is?" she asked, waving one of her braids in the air between them.

"Looks red to me." He said quietly after glancing over.

"You sure."

"Pretty much," he said quietly again, thereby establishing something of a character trait with his speaking habits.

"You wouldn't say it's, maybe orange? Like a carrot."

"Nope, definitely red like a tomato."

"Good, good," she said out loud. "Me and you are maybe going to get along just fine."

They continued on, along the layout of the purpley prose landscape so that the little girl could take in all of the beauty and so that the reader could mentally picture the rural idyll in which the story would be taking place;

There was a long stretch of road that traversed under the snowy blooms of apple trees which she opted to call "Snowy Bloom Way," since the real name was quite boring;

They passed through a small little village called Newbridge that was no more than a smattering of wooden buildings at a crossroads, complete with jumping dogs barking excitedly and little boys playing hoop stick, whatever that is;

Further along, and closer to "home," a marigold sky silhouetted a church spire as the dirt road crested a small hill, with herself being able to see the small farmsteads dotted about the landscape; and

She spied a pond with a bridge over it.

"Oh, my, what is that beautiful pond called?"

"Why that's Barry's pond, on account of it being owned by the Barry's who live up there," he pointed off in the near distance, "on Lean-To Hill. So called as they originally lived in a lean-to. On the hill."

"Why that's just so dreadfully boring and dull. Has no one here a sense of imagination!" she trilled. She looked at the many shifting hues of the water and the grove of trees and greens that fringed it. "I'm going to call it the Lake of Shimmering Water!"

"Why are you going to call it that?"

"Ummm, a little from column 'd'uh' and a little from column, 'because of how the water shimmers so, so beautifully.' Who lives in the house?"

"Why Mr. and Mrs. Barry and their daughter Diana. She about ages with yourself, but…" he trailed off, thinking he shouldn't say, _but don't get attached to the idea_ _of becoming her bosom buddy because you're not long for Puffing Pot Pond._

"The same age as me!" she shouted, "Why that's just peachy, we can be bosom buddies."

_Oh dear, _thought Matthew.

"Never in my wildest imaginations, and I have done some pretty wild imaginings, had I ever imagined that I could live in a place of such bloomy beauty!" She leaned over and hugged Matthew. "To be loved by a kindred spirit such as yourself _and_ to have a lifelong bosom buddy is just too much! I must pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming." And she pinched herself. "Nope, not dreaming, this is realer than real and more permanent than a piece of permanent made in a permanent factory."

_Oh dear, _thought Matthew, again. But he said, "We're almost there, just over this last hill."

"Oh," she shouted, "don't tell me! I must close my eyes and discover which house it is myself." And so she did as she said she would, closing her eyes until she felt the buggy go over the hill. She opened them and beheld Puffing Pot Pond, laid out among the verdant fields that I already told you about. "That's it!" She screamed. "Oh my goodnesss, I finally have a home, a place to live, where I can love and be loved and do all of the things I've only ever read about in poetry books and literary novels. Oh, pinch me, I must be dreaming."

Matthew had half a mind to lean over and pinch her, thinking it might save a lot of bother if she just vanished, waking up in bed back at the asylum. But he didn't. Being shy and all and having gone this long without ever having touched a woman, aside from the lady he said hello to in Charlottetown back when he was a reckless youth, he wasn't about to go a-changing now.

"This is all so beautifully bloomy and wonderful," she exalted. "Why, I could just die!"

_That might help_, thought Matthew before mentally scolding himself for such thoughts, seeing as how her charm was starting to possess him.

After her rapturous exuberance she relapsed into a rapt state of reverie as they made their way along the last little bit of the journey. Despite the marigold sky, the yard was dark when they turned into it, mainly for foreshadowing purposes. The leaves of the poplar trees were whispering away, as if telling little tales to one another that the little girl was not privy to understanding, about how she was not welcome. So it was with a completely unaware sense that she verbalized aloud, "Listen to the lovely trees whispering away as they welcome me."

Matthew pulled the buggy up to the front of the house and hopped out. She thought about Rickrolling him, but opted not to in case she jinxed the situation. Besides, those lyrics are still copyright protected, unlike, say, a story written in 1908. So instead, she grabbed the carpet bag that held all of her yadda yadda and with a thrill that could in no way be dissipated by anything at all she exalted, "This is awesome," while hopping down from the buggy. "Can't wait to meet Marilla. I'm so happy that all of my disappointments are going to be in my past. I figured it was all uphill from the time I got off that train. Yes siree, no more disappointments for me. None."

And so, she marched happily up to the house behind him, while surreptitiously humming the tune to the song aforementioned in the previous paragraph.

CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert's WTFMoment

As the title of this chapter might hopefully indicate, Marilla wasn't in much of a _Que Sera, Sera _mood when Matthew trooped in with the little waif of a girl urchin in tow behind him.


	3. Marilla Cuthbert's WTF Moment

**CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert's WTF Moment (1,804 words)**

As the title of this chapter might hopefully indicate, Marilla wasn't in much of a _Que Sera, Sera _mood when Matthew trooped in with the little waif of a girl urchin in tow behind him.

"Who is that and where is the little boy you were supposed to collect from the station?" Marilla demanded, not even caring that the little girl was in earshot or that, having heard Marilla, her shit eating grin had fallen to the floor, forming a frown of hopeless despair at her feet.

"There was no little boy," said Matthew, "only her."

"Can't you do anything right? This is like the time you came back with magic beans that had no magic. What did Mrs. Spencer say?"

"Mrs. Spencer was already gone and the stationmaster said this little thing," he pointed to the red-headed water fountain of sorrow, "was the only item left behind."

"Well shit on a stick and call it a lollipop, isn't this a pretty little piece of business." Marilla grabbed her smokes and sparked one up. "Firstly, it was bad enough getting an orphan." Marilla didn't need to point out the fact that all orphans came from off-Island, it being a given that off-Islanders are the type of people who have orphans; so she just jumped to her next expostulation, "But, secondly, now we done got us a girl? And, thirdly, heaven have mercy on us, A REDHEAD!?" She shouted at the girl, "Are you a devil?"

"No! I'm not a devil and I'm not a boy! I'm just a girl. A stupid, little red-headed girl that nobody loves!" She cried so much that Matthew got to thinking that she might be handy after all, for irrigation purposes out in the back fields. "I should have known that all this bloomy and beautiful purpley landscape was too good to be true and that you don't want me." The little girl plopped herself down on a chair and splayed her arms across the kitchen table.

Marilla and Matthew stood awkwardly, with Marilla finally saying, "Now, now, there's no need to cry."

That caused the girl to blubber out more. "No need to cry?" Her swollen red eyes matched her hair. "No need to cry? Well then, why if it's brown and sticky it must be a stick, of course there's a reason to cry! The main reason being the tragicallity of it all!" And she burst into more tears. "Imagine that it was you who were an abandoned orphan who had just been shown more beauty than her imagination could ever imagine…only to have it ripped away!"

The child's rant moved Marilla so ever much that a most reluctant smile creaked across her mouth, almost causing her upper plate to ejaculate from her mouth. "Don't fret," she said, "we won't chuck you out tonight. Let's have something to eat and get a good night's sleep and we can bin you in the morrow."

The little girl wailed louder.

"All right, all right." Marilla paced as she was wont to when she was nervous. "We'll have to do some comprehending about this situation in the morrow after which we shall make our way to White Sands to make enquiries and to hopefully avoid much unnecessary circumlocution from the pursed lips of Mrs. Spencer."

The girl looked at her at the mention of Spencer's name, but she realized that she hadn't had the same conversation as she'd had with the station master, so she would have to let some editorial cuts go. Plus she had an interest to see how it all played out.

"That won't be until the afternoon." Marilla looked through the door to the front room, at the large clock. "Which means you've got a full eighteen hours to try and charm us into keeping you, like the red-haired devil you are."

"Wahhhhh," cried the girl. "Don't call me a devil."

Marilla signed, "Well, I don't see how else modern audiences can comprehend the stigma attached to red-hair in our day. I'm just trying to make this a time honoured classic."

The girl sat up and wiped a tear from an eye, "Fair enough."

Matthew coughed, "See, now, you see, but what should we call you?"

"Well fuck a duck," the little girl said, "I only just realized that we're three chapters in and nobody has asked my name. So much for Island hospitality." Marilla and Matthew looked away awkwardly.

"To be fair," Marilla interjected, "it's only been two chapters, seeing as how the first chapter was the set up for—"

"—Oh, _booo hooo_," said the girl. "Yet another reminder that I'm not loved."

"No, I just meant," Marilla stammered. "Okay then, what's your name?"

"Doesn't really matter, call me Jezebel. Seems to fit for all it's worth."

"Now, now, sorry about the bad start." Matthew said.

"Okay, my name's Anne."

They both looked at her, dumbfounded and beet red after trying to pronounce her name.

"Anne?" Marilla said.

"No," said Anne, "Anne. Think of it like Anne, but without an 'e'."

They both tried it a few times until they finally had success, meaning that the "e"could be dropped, for economy's sake.

"Well that is marvelous," said Marilla. "It is surely a very sensible and economical name. I always thought that the extra 'e' in Anne was a bit frivolous, wasteful and garish. Who came up with it?"

"I did," said Ann, which left Marilla judging her slightly less harshly.

"But that's neither here nor there," said Marilla. "Tell me now, were there no boys at the asylum? How could this dreadful mistake have been made, I wonder? We must send word to Mrs. Spencer that this young thing must be sent back."

Ann's thoughts about booting Mrs. Spencer in the behind were interrupted when Marilla asked again about whether the asylum had any boys. "Well," Anne began slowly. "There were, yes. I mean, of course there were boys, plenty of them."

"Had they anything wrong with them?" Matthew asked.

"Well, truth be told," said Ann, "they all only had one leg." Both Marilla and Matthew yawped vociferously at this. "Not the same leg, of course," Anne continued. "Some only had a left, and some only had a right leg."

"Goodness gracious me, that's terrible." Marilla bayed.

"Yes," Matthew exfoliated back.

"Not really," Ann continued. "For you see, they would just take the boys with only a right leg and pair them alongside a boy with only a left leg, and vice versa, and give them one large pair of trousers and an extra big belt and they were able to do their chores!"

"Really?!" the other two counternanced.

"Ummm, sure, yeah," said Ann. "Which is why…one girl…even with red hair…is as good as two boys. That's it, yes. One girl is as good as two boys."

"Well now," said Marilla, "I don't recall reading that anywhere. No matter no mind though, we'll get it all sorted out on the aft of the morrow's morning." Marilla was originally going to have the orphan boy, for surely that was what they thought was going to be the human that would be trafficked to them across the border, sleep on the coal pile. But she realized that would no longer surely do, given what a waterbucket the impertinent Ann was, with her pouring eyes she'd just damp down the coal and they'd never get the morning fire up and a going.

Ann had yet to prove she wasn't a devil so Marilla figured she couldn't have the guest room, leaving either the spot under the stairs that had been newly vacated since Harry moved out, and in with his new found relations, or the room in the east gable. Given the incident under the stairs, Marilla thought it best to foist Ann on the east gable. She lit a candle, asked the girl to collect all of her worldly possessions, and led her through the strict and austere house that was bereft off all decorations save for two daguerreotypes on the stairs that featured a front and rear depiction of

Matthew's beloved Clydesdale.

"Do you have a nightdress?" asked Marilla when they got to the room.

"Of course I do," said Ann taking a potato sack out of her bag. "Though it's only a tragical thing made of wincey and jute and with no frills. Though I did make alterations." She pointed at the holes she had cut for her head and arms.

"Well, that's nice. Get changed and I'll return to get the candle to make sure you don't burn the house down," said Marilla, leaving the room.

Ann took the time afforded to look around the room as she changed into her nightdress: The whitewashed walls were as bare as all get out, as was the floor, save for a mat sticking out from under the bed, which was more of a four-posted cot than anything. There was also a bare dresser with a dull mirror, a bare stool and you get the point that it was pretty bare. But to Ann, whose asylum life was more bare than a stick of bare made in a bare factory, it was heaven.

Until she remembered it was going to be yoinked away from her come the morning of the morrow. Which reminded her to cry again, as she hopped into bed and Marilla returned to get the candle, saying a perfunctory, "Good night."

"Good?!" Ann cried out in a rhetorical manner. "But I'm to be cast upon the wretched rocks of human wretchedness before the sun traverses its poetical arch across the azure sky once more."

"Ummm," pondered Marilla as she blew out the candle, "nighty-night, then?"

Back in the kitchen Marilla sat across from Matthew and sparked up. "Trust that old bitty Spencer to shit it up. We'll have to go over there tomorrow afternoon, uh, I mean, at the time of the morrow's day when the sun's arch has passed the meridian. Spencer'll have some 'splaining to do and maybe take up the cost of getting that waif back off-Island." She emphasized the last bit because Matthew hadn't jumped to agreement.

"Yes," Matthew finally said, unenthusiastically, "We'll have to send her back. I suppose."

"Suppose? Suppose! Has that child already bewitched you? She'd be no good to us."

"Perhaps. But perhaps we could be good for her."

"Ah, shit," condescended Marilla, "but that makes no good Victorian economical sense?"

And so they argued a bit more. Not loudly, mind, but loud enough that they didn't hear the quiet whimpering of a frightened little girl up the stairs and over in the room of the east gable, a friendless little girl now destined to know no kindred spirits and to have no bosom buddies, slowly crying herself into a melodramatic and misbegotten sleep.

**CHAPTER IV. (Not a Good) Morning at Puffing Pot Pond**

...coming soon...


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